Church spreads holiday cheer to children and families with toy and food donations

by Lauren Partain

They typically get truckloads of donations from across the country to pass out to local churches, food banks and neighborhoods. (KTUL)

JENKS, Okla. (KTUL) – The Northstar Church typically passes out food donations each week, but on Wednesday, they did something special for thousands of children in Green Country: passing out 20,000 Olaf dolls from the movie "Frozen."

The dolls were donated earlier in the year, but Ethan Jacobsen, a pastor with the church, said they held onto them until the holiday season.

“We thought there is no better way to get these out than at Christmas time to the boys and girls throughout our community in Tulsa, Bixby and all over the surrounding area,” Jacobsen said. “It’s a precious thing to see, the joy kids have when you give them something brand new.”

The church has an entire warehouse in Jenks dedicated to feeding people around Green Country.

“Every day we are feeding the community, our community,” said Rod Baker, Pastor at Northstar Church. “We’re serving many churches and just trying to help boys and girls, single moms, grandparents that are raising their grandchildren and we’re just trying to make sure boys and girls have a meal every day.”

They typically get truckloads of donations from across the country to pass out to local churches, food banks and neighborhoods.

Some items include canned foods, diapers and even fresh produce.

“We get thousands of pounds of fresh produce every week,” said Baker. “In our inner cities and in our rural communities most families don’t get fresh produce and so it’s really a gift from God. These organizations just donate to us because they know if they give it to us we’ll get it out in the community.”

The work isn’t done alone.

“There’s people here who come every day to serve to make our city and our community a better place because boys and girls won’t go to bed hungry,” said Baker.

They will continue donating food throughout the year to people who need it most.